News

Not everyone will agree that the Moral Monday protests that have brought thousands to the state Capitol recently, and resulted in more than 350 arrests, are the right course to air grievances against policies of the N.C. legislature. Yet the protests are shining a light on something shameful in this state – a problem this legislature, and previous ones, have largely ignored: the dire condition of the state’s poor.

Indeed, last year when N.C. Rep. George Cleveland, R-Onslow, declared (in trying to defend cutting pre-kindergarten programs) there was “no extreme poverty in North Carolina,” he highlighted the ignorance and misinformation too many N.C. lawmakers possess about the economic condition of many in the state. Not only that, he underscored this reality: The poor don’t really have a champion, or at least very effective ones, among the state’s policymakers.